My first few years in Germany, I didn't celebrate Thanksgiving. I figured, I'm here, it's an American holiday. . . then I met an American expat brand new to Germany and she said, quite disgusted, "That's like not celebrating Christmas because you're in Iran? You don't skip a holiday you've celebrated your whole life, simply because of where you are." Duh.
So we set out to find a turkey. We settled for two chickens. Sweet potatoes were nowhere to be found. We had Preiselbeeren as opposed to cranberries and everything else tasted like a variation of the real thing.
Seven years later, since that first Thanksgiving, I've managed to find sweet potatoes at the organic market. I'm not even going to tell you how much I spent for them, (let's just say I've seen black truffles go for less). Turkey is no problem, as the Berlin food market caught on to the thousands of American expats living here desperately searching for turkeys in November. Even cranberries can be found now, directly next to the Preiselbeeren.
We made Thanksgiving happen and Berlin responded. There is almost nothing that can't be found in Berlin. I can even get plantains here at the Asian store (Haitians can't even make it through Thanksgiving without fried plantains).
So thank you, Berlin, for listening to our needs. And Happy Thanksgiving to all American expats everywhere, even if you end up carving a chicken.
Photo: flickr
6 comments:
girl, i'm about to make some crepes for my bootleg pot luck spanish thanksgiving dinner... on saturday. all kinds of wrong, i know.
crepes? dang, you couldn't find any cornmeal or something? lol! Happy Thanksgiving, er two days later.
Sister, All this talk of fried plantains and dinners is makin me salivate!! :)
Heres hopin your thanksgiving is fantastisch!
Much love, M
Rosie,
Getting to this kind of late, but totally reminds me of my first Thanksgiving in Spain, where in protest we made pizza. I cried a little bit later.
Hello there,
I'm new to your blog even though we're practically neighbors. I live in the Netherlands, and this post got me laughing. I couldn't - and still can't - find greens anywhere. The worst part is that even my Dutch husband, who's lived in America, doesn't even know the Dutch word for greens so that I can ask a green grocer. I didn't celebrate Thanksgiving, either, for the first several years, but now I'm even willing to spend the whole day by myself in the kitchen preparing my own little feast. I'm hoping my kids will fell the American in our home. Great blog.
Hi, I'm another expat (but in Frankfurt) and I just came across your blog. I just thought I would mention that you should look in Turkish markets for sweet potatoes. They were the first place we happened to find them here...although now you can ever get them in Rewe sometimes! Hope you have another great Thanksgiving this year. What I wouldn't give for some plantains!
Post a Comment